Azure Application Gateway vs. Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Application Gateway
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's Azure Application Gateway is a platform-managed, scalable, and highly available application delivery controller as a service with integrated web application firewall.N/A
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Palo Alto next-generation firewalls classify all traffic, including encrypted and internal traffic, based on application, application function, user and content. Users can create security policies to enable only authorized users to run sanctioned applications.N/A
Pricing
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Azure Application Gateway
-
Ratings
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
9.4
22 Ratings
9% above category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.022 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.022 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings10.022 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings9.022 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings10.021 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings10.021 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings8.810 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Small Businesses
Cloudflare
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Score 8.5 out of 10
pfSense
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Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cloudflare
Cloudflare
Score 8.5 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
NGINX
NGINX
Score 9.1 out of 10
Cisco Meraki MX
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(8 ratings)
10.0
(38 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.4
(9 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Application GatewayPalo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
For building scalable and highly available applications, Azure Application Gateway does most of the job on behalf of you; automatically load-balancing traffic from a number of users to a number of back-end servers. This ensure scalability and availability. The in-built security is great as can be expected from Microsoft, and user has a variety of tools for monitoring the health of the load-balancing function as well as the health of back end servers behind it.
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Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series are extremely versatile. Whether it be a one office location or multiple sites, the Panorama interface allows centralized management. I've found Palo Alto does a great job with their updates and supporting customers. As a cybersecurity professional, I like that Palo Alto's products offer a wide range of controls to support defense in depth. It is easy for security and network infrastructure teams to use the same consoles to deliver performance with security built in.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Easy integration with Load Balancer and Azure Scale Set to provide a full solution for traffic management.
  • With rich routing rule, we could use one Application Gateway as the central point for all internal applications to expose to the external network.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • The PA handles VPN connectivity without missing a beat. We have multiple VPN tunnels in use for redundancy to cloud-based services.
  • The PA has great functionality in supporting failover internet connections, again with the ability to have multiple paths out to our cloud-based services.
  • The PA is updated on the regular with various security updates, we are not concerned with the firewall's ability to see what packets are really flowing across the network. Being able to see beyond just IP and port requests lets you know things are locked down better than traditional firewalls.
  • It is a great overall kit, with URL filtering and other services that fill in the gaps between other solutions without breaking the bank.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Live examples in the Azure documentation
  • Application Gateway UI Blade in Azure Portal can be streamlined
  • Have more advanced feature set as WAF (Web Application Firewall)
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Our specific model is a bit slow and outdated and takes up to 10 minutes to commit a configuration change.
  • Nested security rules would be helpful instead of a linear approach. But rule creation in general is very simple.
  • Documentation gives a very straight forward answer to some items but is very vague in others.
  • Support could be a little better. An issue we had a tech was insistent it was the "other guy" and it ended up being the very latest PAN OS upgrade.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Palo Alto Networks
The PA5220s have far exceeded what we have expected out of them. It was a bit of a learning curve coming from another vendor, but everything falls into place now with ease. The capabilities of the solution still surprise us, allowing us to remove other costly hardware and providing a single point of management needed
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Usability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Palo Alto Networks
In my opinion, the Palo Alto Firewall is the simplest firewall in terms of management interfaces; though it has more advanced options that apply to more advanced use cases. Configuring basic features on the firewall is nearly self-explanatory; configuring more advanced features can be met with very thorough vendor documentation.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
I don’t like that it's part of the Microsoft brand. In general, I am not a fan of Microsoft products but Azure gets it right.
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Palo Alto Networks
We've run into a couple undocumented bugs, but that seems to happen with every brand and technology. Any time we've had to engage Palo Alto support they've always been professional, knowledgeable and prompt. In almost all cases we've been able to resolve our issues without having to escalate our tickets.
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Other load balancing tools in Azure (Azure LB and Azure Traffic Manager) are limited in their functionality in comparison with the Azure Application Gateway, and also, they don't provide security features. Azure Firewall, although it has security features, is more expensive, and most importantly, it's not a load balancer at all.
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Palo Alto Networks
We are using Cisco ASA before in our environment but when it comes to deep scanning & layer 7 security it doesn't have that capability. After using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall we are using sandboxing & advance malware protection that provides high-level end-user security. Also after implementing it we can easily monitor user-level traffic.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Positive : Improved performance and scalability
  • Positive : Better and enhanced Security
  • Positive : Efficiency
  • Negative: Cost
  • Negative: More resources to manage.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Overall, even though the device is very expensive (both hardware and licensing), the product does produce a decent ROI, given that one (or HA pair) of devices can do so many things, such as anti-virus, anti-malware, URL filtering, SSL decryption, SSL VPN, routing, etc.
  • There will definitely be sticker shock when you're renewal comes up annually (or after 3 years), so be sure to look very carefully at the recurring costs of this product, with respect to licensing and hardware/software maintenance.
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ScreenShots